Hyderabad: Minister for industries K.T. Rama Rao, while inaugurating the 18th edition of BioAsia here on Monday, said that the government of Telangana was aiming to grow the life sciences sector into a $100 billion industry by 2030.
The life sciences sector in Telangana has attracted investments worth '3,700 crore in the last one year, with an employment potential for over 14,000 jobs, he said.
Mr Rama Rao, addressing the gathering, said, “our vision of growing the life sciences industry to over $100 billion looks plausible and we remain committed to it. I would like to highlight that even after widespread health and economic distress caused by Covid-19 pandemic, players in the sector in Telangana have responded with resilience and registered tremendous growth during the year.”
Referring to manufacturing of vaccines for Covid-19 in Hyderabad, Mr Rao said that Hyderabad’s position as the “vaccine capital of the world was bolstered further”.
“I take pride in saying that Hyderabad rose to the occasion and made an impact for the entire world to witness. It is a matter of pride that the world is looking to India and Hyderabad,” he said.
“The visit of foreign envoys from over 60 countries, and of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the Genome Valley in Hyderabad is a testimony to the cluster’s significance in a global context,” he said.
While lauding Bharat Biotech’s contribution and commitment to develop India’s first indigenous vaccine for Covid-19, he appreciated the efforts of Biological E and Indian Immunologicals.
Hetero Pharma and Dr Reddy’s are also augmenting the global supply by manufacturing and distributing Russian vaccine Sputnik. Further, Aurobindo Pharma is building a world-class vaccine manufacturing facility, with a capacity of about 450 million doses.
“All these highlight the position of Hyderabad. A significant part of the global population will be immunised with vaccines produced in Hyderabad,” he said.
“A feather in our cap has been the approval of Umbralisib for cancer treatment. It is historic because this is the first drug ever discovered in India to be approved by the US-FDA (food and drugs administration). I am extremely proud that the discovery of Umbralisib is led from Incozen’s facility in Genome Valley,” Mr Rama Rao said.
The Medical Devices Park in Hyderabad continues to be the destination-of-choice, where 40 companies are establishing their manufacturing and R&D facilities, he said.
Mr Rao emphasised, “on the pharma industry front, we remain committed to grounding the Hyderabad Pharma City project soon to support India’s pharma industry regain its leadership position in APIs (active pharmaceutical ingredients) and KSMs (key starting materials), offering significant cost and value benefits.”
The BioAsia inaugural saw the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the state government and Cytiva to set up a Biopharma scale up facility, B-Hub, in the Genome Valley.
As eight out of 10 top selling drugs globally today are biopharmaceuticals, B-Hub will help Telangana and India in accelerating the growth of the biopharmaceutical sector. He added that he was confident that Telangana would emerge as the biopharmaceutical capital of India.
